Over the lifecycle of a network device, it is common practice to need to change the state (including configuration settings) of the network device, and/or to need to acquire information about the current state of the network device. This may be done by accessing a command line interface (CLI) of the network device and executing CLI commands to change the state of the network device or to obtain information about the state of the network device. Additionally, there have been attempts to develop systems that automate a subset of the functionality that is available via the CLI. These systems typically become obsolete as network device hardware and/or software is updated. Further, these systems are not generally standard and must be modified by users of network equipment to meet the needs of their network environment.